The RATP pension scheme: closed — and then what?

If there’s one scheme everyone has in mind, it’s the RATP’s: the 2019 strikes, endless debates, a symbol brandished at every reform. Yet its interest isn’t in the controversy — it’s in what it teaches. RATP is the clearest textbook case for understanding a mechanism often misread: what “closing a scheme” really changes, and when.

4th episode. See the overall architecture (episode 1), then SNCF and the IEG for funding comparisons.

The fund and the rules

The scheme is run by the CRP RATP (RATP staff pension fund), a private-law social-security body, autonomous from the company since 2006¹. It is a base special pension scheme, with rules of its own.

The calculation. As at SNCF, the pension rests on the last six months: at the full rate it equals 75% of the final salary (excluding bonuses), adjusted by length of service and any pension discount / premium².

The ages. The scheme distinguishes job categories:

• drivers (bus, metro, RER — “active category”): retirement possible from 52 (with 27 years of service);
• maintenance staff: 57;
• sedentary staff: 62.

The full-rate duration (168 contribution quarters) is being raised toward 172, as in the private sector, by the 2023 reform applied to the scheme since 1 January 2025². A telling detail of the statute: to be recruited under it, you had to be 35 at most.

Who pays: another State subsidy

Like SNCF — and unlike the IEG — RATP does not fund itself. The scheme pays out about €1.2bn in pensions a year to some 52,000 retirees, for only ~40,000 contributors: a ratio of roughly 0.8 contributor per retiree³. Contributions (12.95% from employees, 19.02% from RATP) aren’t enough.

The gap is filled by a State balancing subsidy covering close to 62% of spending — about €780m in 2023³. And that compensation is set to rise: the fund’s head put it at around €1.2bn for 2026⁴, a direct consequence of the scheme’s closure.

The crux: “closing” doesn’t mean “saving right away”

The scheme has been closed to new entrants since 1 September 2023: any agent recruited afterward falls under the general scheme + Agirc-Arrco⁵. This is the grandfather clause (see episode 1): nothing was taken from staff in post, the entries were stopped.

But that’s exactly where intuition goes wrong. Closing a scheme doesn’t make it cheaper in the short term — the opposite. As long as you kept recruiting, new contributors paid for the retirees. By cutting the intake, you dry up contributions before the pensions wind down: the imbalance worsens first, and the State subsidy rises for years. It will recede only slowly, as the closed group fades — over about fifty years, the time for the last agent hired in late 2019 to retire and then pass away.

Key takeaways

• Scheme run by the CRP RATP; full-rate pension = 75% of the last six months; early retirement for drivers (52), later for maintenance (57) and sedentary staff (62).
• ~62% funded by the State (~€780m in 2023, rising) because there are ~0.8 contributor per retiree — like SNCF, unlike the IEG.
• Closed to new entrants since 2023: the subsidy rises first, then fades over ~50 years. “Closing” ≠ “saving right away”.
• The closure has an attractiveness/recruitment side effect: a special scheme is also an HR tool.

Next episode: seafarers and the ENIM — the oldest scheme in France (1673), with a contribution logic like no other.

This article is general information and does not constitute advice. The rules and figures cited are those known in mid-2026 and change with each reform.